Clifford Irving's Legal Novels - 01 - TRIAL - a Legal Thriller

by Clifford Irving

  "And he blocked the front door so you couldn't leave?"

  "No, he didn't do that then. That was long before."

  "Ms. Boudreau, right after the murder, was your memory fresh as to what had happened?"

  "Yes."

  "Less than forty minutes after the murder, didn't you tell Sergeant Ruiz that Dr. Ott had blocked the front door after you and Dr. Ott had come downstairs?"

  "Yes."

  For half an hour Altschuler played the theme of her prior inconsistent statement to Ruiz. Johnnie Faye admitted that she might have said certain words to Ruiz, but the facts were incorrect. She had been confused. She might have thought her memory was fresh, but she was actually in shock.

  "So," Altschuler said, "you picked up the poker from the fireplace to strike him?"

  "No, sir."

  "You didn't pick up the poker?"

  "Yes, but I picked it up because he threatened me."

  "You were going to defend yourself with the poker?"

  "Yes."

  "You meant to kill him with that heavy iron poker, didn't you, or inflict serious bodily harm?"

  "No, sir. I meant to keep him away from me with it."

  "And then he took the poker away from you?"

  "Yes."

  "He was drunk and stoned, and you were sober, and yet he was able to take the poker out of your grasp? You couldn't elude him?"

  "Yes, he was able, and no, I couldn't elude him."

  "And he blocked your path to the front door?"

  "No, sir, not then. He threw me onto the sofa."

  "And then you took the pistol from your handbag?"

  "No, sir. Not until he raised the poker and said he was going to kill me with it."

  "That's when he charged across the room at you, isn't it?"

  "Yes, sir."

  "And you shot him twice as he was charging at you, isn't that so?"

  "No, sir. He stopped short, he stood still, and I said, 'Don't take another step, Clyde, or I'll shoot you.'"

  "You had already cocked the action?"

  "No, sir. I didn't cock it."

  "But when you took the pistol out of your handbag, you released the safety catch so that it would fire, didn't you?"

  "I must have done that without thinking."

  "You said you were a very good shot, didn't you?"

  "Yes, on a target range."

  "What part of Dr. Ott's body did you aim for?"

  "His shoulder."

  "Left shoulder or right shoulder?"

  "Left, I think."

  "Show us how you held the gun. Just use your finger and point it at me. You can stand up from the witness chair if you like."

  After a pause — but no objection came — Johnnie Faye stood and raised her hand, fist clenched, index finger protruding. Her elbow was bent.

  "Your arm wasn't level?"

  "No, sir."

  "Can't you shoot more accurately if your firing arm is level?"

  "Yes, you can."

  "On the firing range at Western America, don't you shoot with your arm level and extended in order to hit the target?"

  "Yes."

  "So with your arm bent, weren't you taking a grave risk that your shot, which you say was aimed at his left shoulder, might be off a few inches and hit him in the heart instead?"

  "I didn't think about the risk. I was frightened."

  "You knew that gun had its sear filed off illegally, making it fully automatic — you knew that, didn't you?"

  "I knew about the sear. I didn't know that was illegal."

  "You pulled the trigger three times, didn't you?"

  "No, just once. But it kept on firing."

  "You missed with the first shot?"

  "I don't know."

  "You mean you may have missed with the last shot? Shot him twice in the head and chest, and then fired another round to make it seem as if you'd just been shooting wildly?"

  "No, sir, I don't mean that. I mean that I didn't know then and don't know now which two of the three shots hit him."

  "Ms. Boudreau, isn't it a fact that you could have run around him and made your way to the front door and the safety of your car?"

  "No, sir, I was on the sofa."

  "Isn't it a fact that you could have used your pistol to keep him at bay while you ran or walked past him?"

  "No, sir. Even if I could have done that, he could have used that poker to brain me when I ran by."

  "You didn't think it was worth a man's life to take that risk?"

  "I wasn't thinking that clearly."

  "You thought it was better to kill him and be done with it?"

  "No, sir."

  "Isn't it a fact that he never picked up the poker?"

  "No, sir, he did pick it up."

  "Isn't it a fact that the reason his palm prints weren't on the poker was because after you shot him you picked up the poker yourself and then pressed a dead man's fingerprints onto it?"

  "No, sir, that's absolutely not a fact."

  "Come on, Ms. Boudreau — didn't you decide to kill Dr. Ott because you were in a rage that he wouldn't marry you?"

  "No, that's not true either."

  "What is true, Ms. Boudreau?"

  "That I shot him in self-defense. That if I hadn't done it, he might have killed me. Would have killed me."

  "Ah, but which is it? Might have or would have? You're not at all certain, are you?"

  "I was certain then," Johnnie Faye said, "that he would have killed me."

  "I take it you're no longer so certain."

  "Yes, I still am. He would have done it."

  "But a moment ago you used the words might have, didn't you?"

  "Yes, I did."

  "So there is a doubt in your mind!"

  Johnnie Faye took a deep breath. "Sir, ever since this happened on the night of May 7 I've been in agony over it. I've hardly slept. I didn't hate Clyde. Taking a person's life is the worst thing a human being can do, and if you take the life of someone you once loved, even if you didn't mean to do it, you live in hell forever. So, yes, there have been doubts in my mind — lots of them. Terrible moments. I cry all night long sometimes. But I believe with all my heart — unless I wanted to take the chance that he would kill me — that I had no choice."

  From the blotch of dark pink color that spread across Bob Altschuler's face, Warren gathered that the prosecutor knew the jury had been sold some snake oil. But there was little he could do anymore, not until final argument. Glaring stonily at the defense lawyer, he passed the witness.

  For the better part of two hours the state and the defense tossed Johnnie Faye back and forth between them, Warren working to patch the leaks in her fabricated story and Altschuler seeking to punch out new holes. Then, with Altschuler's final derisive "Pass the witness" and Warren's confident cry of "The defense rests!" — it was over.

  Just after five-thirty in the afternoon, a weary Judge Bingham tapped his gavel on the walnut bench. "On Monday morning," he said, for the benefit of the jurors and the media, "I will charge the jury. Then we'll have final argument by both attorneys. Defense goes first. The state last, because they have the burden of proof." He turned to the twelve jurors and the two alternates. "Don't read the newspapers over the weekend. If you feel you must read the foreign news and the sports pages, or Peanuts and Garfield, have someone in your family clip out anything that's been written in the paper about this trial. Please try not to watch the news on television. And don't discuss the case with your family or friends. You'll begin deliberating on Monday afternoon. Since no one can predict how long that will take, I suggest you bring your overnight kit in case you have to spend the night here. Not here" — he smiled — "we're not quite as inhuman as all that. I mean in a hotel. Now y'all have a nice weekend."

  The jury filed out. The courtroom smelled of stale air and sweat. Warren, even before he and Rick rose from the counsel table, saw the media people beckoning or bearing down upon them. He raised a hand to keep them at bay. "Don't m
ove," he ordered Johnnie Faye. He drew Rick forward to the empty jury box. He had instructed him to watch the jurors the whole time during both direct and cross, to pick up reactions.

  "She did well," Rick said. "She's a real pistol. She's a one-woman argument for gun control law."

  "Are we ahead or are we behind?"

  Rick meditated a moment, then brightened. "I'd say it's a tie late in the fourth quarter. They've got the ball deep in their own territory. It's up to us to stop them. Dee-fense," Rick chanted.

  "Thanks. Just tell me — do they believe her or not?"

  "Some do, some don't. The women looked the most skeptical. When you do final argument, pitch it to the women. I've made a lot of notes. You want to meet tomorrow and work on it?"

  "Make it Sunday," Warren said. "Tomorrow I'm going out of town."

  "Attaboy," Rick said. "Take a holiday. Go to the beach. Stick your head in the sand. Clear your mind."

  Heat waves rippled above the highway. The land spread flat and brown in every direction. A wit had once said, "Texas is a place where you can look farther and see less than anywhere else on earth." Warren's head ached. The trial of Johnnie Faye Boudreau, wherein he believed his client was guilty but was obliged to fight for her freedom, was about to come to an end. After that the trial of Hector Quintana, wherein he knew his client was innocent but couldn't prove it, would resume. His estranged wife, who had left him for another man, had changed her mind and wanted to come back to him. Now, on Saturday morning, Maria Hahn sat at his side in the BMW, fiddling with the tape deck. What I would like to do next week, Warren thought, is get on a plane to Bali. Alone.

  He tried to banish Charm to the back of his mind. Don't think about her. Don't think about an elephant.

  He had been to see Hector early that morning. Abiding misery had made the Mexican's face a little grayer than on the previous visit; there were purple blotches on his cheeks. Warren wanted to say, "I'm working for you, I'm doing all I can. Don't give up" — but the words forming in his mind seemed powdery and without substance. "How are you?" he asked.

  "I can't sleep good," Hector said.

  "They keep you awake?"

  "No. Me. I do it."

  "Not much longer," Warren promised. "Maybe next week."

  "I want to tell you something," Hector said. "On my mind a long time. I lie to you."

  "What about?" Warren asked, his heartbeat perceptibly quickening.

  "The shopping cart. You ask me a long time ago if I steal it. I say I found it." Hector shook his head. "That's the only lie I ever tole you."

  Warren thought, My heart will break if this man goes to prison.

  He promised to come by on Sunday and bring a newspaper.

  Maria put on a tape that she had brought with her for the trip: a caterwauling black soul singer, with a heavy bass beat.

  "Do me a favor," Warren said. "Look in the glove compartment. I think there's some Vivaldi there."

  A sign flashed by. VICTORIA: 10. BEEVILLE: 56.

  Vivaldi soothed him for a while with part of The Contest of Harmony and Invention — Le Quattro Staglóni. the four seasons of the year. The four seasons of life. Childhood, often called youth. Manhood. Decay. Dying. Was dying a season? Sometimes it seemed that way.

  He was a forgiving man. His nature suffused his profession. A lawyer more than most men had to learn to forgive. To forget was more difficult. But that could be done too. Life moved on like a river, and water could not long remember the bruise it had received from a rock upstream. The final question was: what do I want?

  Not to punish her, Warren thought. That would be coarse. I do love her. Whatever that means. Partners and companions. Substance, richness, longevity. When Charm had told him she was in love with another man and might abandon her marriage, Warren's mind had used those words. He had not spoken them; in his mind they were far more than words. His mind, struggling for coherence in the midst of such crippling confusion, told him they were poor ways to say that in the eyes of the universe a life is a pitifully brief chemical event, but it can have continuity. Continuity can have shape, structure. Shape and structure is all we have to keep the demons of nothingness at bay, to pass through the years feeling decent, timidly proud. You can't throw away eight years if you have the chance to retrieve them and build on them.

  But I'm young, Warren thought. I can make fresh starts. I can find continuity even if my life is broken into chapters. There are chapters in a book, but the book still forms a whole. There are seasons, wickedly different, but they are linked.

  He was fond of Maria, enjoyed her — he was not in love with her. Did not love her yet, but could. And with time, if he chose to invest it, would. He saw that clearly.

  GOLIAD: 8. BEEVILLE: 38.

  "You okay?" Maria asked, shifting in her seat to pick up a thermos that she had filled with Gatorade.

  "Fine," Warren said.

  "How's your headache?"

  "Almost gone."

  "Want a sip of Gatorade, honey?"

  "No, thanks." He smiled.

  The little conversations that break up our thoughts, keep us sane and make us feel loved. I wish I could tell her everything, take her into my heart and mind. But we never can. Can only hint. Can share but can never be one.

  Not just Maria. He didn't fault Maria, or himself. We are so fucking alone.

  Honey, she had called him. She was affectionate, needed affection but asked little else so far. She didn't mind that he was separate. Charm minded. I could be happy with Maria, he thought. Alone and happy. But happy is for adolescents, pop songs and idiots. Call it content. I could grow old with her and we would never know anything about each other except what each of us wanted the other to know. There would be hints for the receptors to grasp but no knowledge. And perhaps that's best. I could do my work, raise her son, have a kid of my own with her. Grow old with ease. The river would flow. There would be rocks and eddies but it would be navigable. I'd have to listen to a lot of riddles, but she'd have to listen to a lot of snores. And I wouldn't have to buy another camera.

  His mind was coming down off the high. Beeville was not far ahead.

  "You worried about the case?" Maria asked.

  Yes, I'm worried that my client will be found not guilty. Not just worried. Crazed.

  "It's complicated," he said.

  She asked no more questions. Warren was grateful. Thanks, honey.

  Outside the courtroom, late yesterday afternoon, Johnnie Faye had caught him by the arm. "How'd I do?"

  "We'll see," he answered cruelly. "Maybe they'll believe you."

  Her eyes had narrowed. "You better make a good speech for me."

  "Maybe Rick will do final argument."

  "No. I want you. I trust you."

  Yes. That was his obligation, one way or the other. He nodded his agreement.

  Now on Saturday morning he was driving to Beeville to hunt for a man with a nickname. The man might not be there. He might have been and gone. Without him, Warren believed, the Quintana jury would come in with a guilty verdict. A pile of circumstantial evidence, but circumstantial evidence was often the most compelling. A shaky eyewitness stood at the core of it, but there was the matter of the pistol gripped in Hector's hand. The pistol wouldn't go away.

  They reached Beeville at eleven o'clock in the morning. It was an old cattle town north of the King Ranch. Not too far from Odem and Corpus Christi, where Johnnie Faye had been bred to be a monster. Warren wondered about Mama, to whom she was still loyal, and Daddy, who had run the Exxon and preached hellfire and brimstone on Sunday mornings. What were they really like? What had they done to her? Or not done? What had gone askew in her mind? He would never know.

  He slid the car off the bypass road and drove down the main street. They passed a motel, a supermarket, a bowling alley. No parking meters, no high-rises. Pecan and oak trees drooped in the dust in front of small brick houses with picket fences and parched lawns. Warren spotted a pool hall and a Mobil station.

 
; "Pool hall's probably the best bet," he said to Maria, "so I'll try the Mobil first." He had done the same thing as a boy, eating his vegetable and baked potato first, saving the rib-eye steak for last.

  Outside the car the heat struck a mean blow. A young black man was pumping gas, and a white man of about fifty sat at the cash register in front of the rattly air-conditioning unit, working on credit card receipts.

  Warren, in boots and worn jeans and shirtsleeves, stuck a toothpick between his teeth and said, "Mornin'."

  "Mornin' to you."

  "Hot day."

  "Sure is."

  "Man in this town, some folks up in Houston call him Jim Dandy. He around?"

  The man behind the cash register grinned, showing yellow teeth. "You the law?"

  Warren felt like Gary Cooper or Jimmy Stewart in an old western. The setting was right. The dialogue was hoary.

  "Shoot, no," he said. "I'm a lawyer. Tryin' to help Jim out."

  "Well, Jim Dandy's around. Was, anyway."

  Warren took a twenty-dollar bill from his shirt pocket and lifted a map of Mexico from the rack next to the cash register. "I guess I can use one of these. Keep the change, friend."

  The station owner took the twenty, opened the cash register, and gave Warren eighteen dollars change. "This ain't Houston," he said. "Jim Dandy's up at Kitty Marie's. You know Kitty Marie too?"

  "No, sir," Warren said.

  "Little house on DeKalb Street. Go back up a few blocks past Walgreen's and turn right. Next to last house on the block, got a beat-up black Chevy pickup in front of it. Kitty Marie's shift at McDonald's don't start until late afternoon, so she's likely to be home."

  "What's his real name?" Warren asked.

  "Who?"

  "Jim Dandy."

  "That's his real name. His name is Jim Dandy. That's the name he was born with, that's what we call him."

  Warren laughed quietly. "Like you guessed, I never met him. Anything I need to know?"

  "Well, Jim Dandy's so poor he'd have to borrow money to buy water to cry with. And Kitty Marie's so ugly she'd run a dog off a meat wagon. So if you were a religious man you might say that God did them both a favor by uniting them. Other than that, what else you need to know?"